Speeding driver who killed 11-year-old Isabelle Boshell in Coventry avoids jailA SPEEDING driver who was rushing home from work when he hit and killed a young girl as she ran across the road in front of him has avoided jail.
And 11-year-old Isabelle Boshell’s irate father stormed out of court when he realised a judge at Warwick Crown Court was about to give driver Ola Onubogu a suspended sentence.
Onubogu,54, of Wappenbury Road, Wood End, Coventry, had pleaded guilty to causing Isabelle’s death in October last year by careless driving.
He was sentenced to six months in prison suspended for two years, ordered to do 120 hours of unpaid work and banned from driving for 15 months.
Sentencing Onubogu, Judge Anthony Potter told him: “There is nothing you can do and nothing I can do that can possibly take away the pain Isabelle’s family suffer and will continue to suffer for the rest of their lives.
“You accept you were travelling at greater than the speed limit… and at a stage where you approached where Isabelle was walking there is a pedestrian crossing and ‘slow’ painted on the surface.
“She came from the right side, running between traffic behind a van, and because of your speed you were unable to stop.
“You are a parent yourself. It is impossible to imagine what goes through a parent’s mind when they are faced with the decision on whether they should allow life support to be withdrawn – and they had to make that decision.
“There are no words that could possibly express the loss the Boshell family has suffered.
“Had you obeyed the speed limit on that road, no matter how unpredictable Isabelle’s actions might have been, you would have been able to avoid that accident.”
Judge Potter said the offence ‘plainly crosses the custody threshold,’ but that there was strong mitigation which moved it towards a suspended sentence.
Without waiting to hear the sentence, Mr Boshell threw his statement to the floor in front of the judge and stormed out of court, declaring: “What a s**t show.”
He was followed by another family member who commented as she left: “I hope you’ve got a little girl of the same age.”